How To Give A Japanese Body Massage

The Japanese body massage also known as "Shiatsu" is very relaxing and soothing for the body as well as the mind. It releases all your stress, your tensions and rejuvenates you.It can also be given to pregnant women in a certain way.

Hello! My name is Louise Johnson and I am going to show you how to do a Japanese body massage, which is also known as Shiatsu. The basic Shiatsu position is a kneeling position where you put you put your body weight onto the person who is receiving the treatment. As you canimagine it is very important to make sure that as you do this, we takecare of the spine of the person you are working with.

There are two points on the spine where we can actually apply quite a lot of pressure without damaging the person. In Shiatsu we mainly use our body weight to apply pressure. The first point is here on the coccyx and the second point is at the place where for most people is the highest point of the shoulder blades.

One of the basic principles of Shiatsu is applying perpendicular pressure. Which means the hands, my arms should be at 90 degrees to the body of the person who I am working with. So as I lean forward I am not actually applying very much pressure at the moment.

Most of my pressure, most of my weight is still on my knees. You can ask the person receiving how does the pressure feel.

I can't feel it.

OK. So now I am just going to sink in to. So I am applying equal pressure here now with my right hand and my left hand.

I am going to put my left hand here and equalize the pressure. Another thing that you can do which feels very nice is to stretch across the back. So I am placing this hand here on the edge of the pelvis.

I know I can apply quite a lot of pressure here without actually hurting a person,because the pelvis is very strong. And this hand here I am just goingto place around the shoulder blade. And then I am going to lean over the middle using my body weight to push the two hands apart slightly.

And that's pushing down either side of the spine slowly, gently and quite firmly, but not hard.

I am waiting as her chest rises and then falls and I push down inside the spine. Be very careful that you are not touching the spine and then and that your palms are definitely either side.

Each time look I am just checking where the vertebrae is. I think that one is a bit hard there. So I am not going to apply too much of pressure there now.

It feels very nice to have a stretch here. You can take a person's leg and apply a nice stretch. Remember to put a strong hand on the base of the spine here and that helps to open out the pelvis at the front.

Feels very nice.

Find a safe point on the foot that you can use for general relaxation, releasing anxiety, promoting sleep, restlessness, calming the mind. And that's right in the centre of the foot.

This is a side position and we are basically going to apply the same techniques we used on the back. But, in the side position you can access different parts of the body and it's also a really good way ofworking with pregnant women who can't lie on their front. So you can actually access the back and apply gentle and not too strong pressure here.

You can work down the legs.

So what we have covered today is some of the basic principles of how to give a relaxing massage using some of the basic techniques of Shiatsu.